OK, you gotta check this out. These two maps at a blog called Sensory Overload show that – basically – states which were slave states or open to slavery before the Civil War went to Bush, while those that were Free States went for Kerry. What does this mean?

Tom Wolfe Out Styling With a New Novel

A novel about college life by a 75-year-old writer doesn’t drive me to amazon.com, but it’s an interesting article about him.

I received an e-mail this morning from an old and dear friend, a minister in Texas. He asks for prayers for his son David, a U.S. Marine in Fallujah, Iraq. His unit is under constant fire. One of his comrades took a bullet to the chest, and was saved only by new body armor. David says it’s heavy, but he never takes his off.

David, this is for you …

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness

for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine

enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I was listening to Air America in my old democratic blue pickup earlier, and heard this being discussed. I took it with a grain of salt, as I do everything these days, and made a mental note to check the blogs for it when I got home. I fugured it would take a few minutes. But as soon as I logged on, there it is big as life on Yahoo News.

OK, here it was found and it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. But they were also saying — on an earlier broadcast — that there are many widespread instances in which areas that went for Kerry matched the exit polls, while areas that went to Bush did not. Hey, you think maybe he stole this election too?

Yahoo! News – Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

Marty showered and put on winter clothes that he pulled from a pile on the chair, with an Irish sweater and hiking shoes. He stood looking into a framed photo on the wall above the desk. In black and white, it showed a receding row of winter-trimmed grape stalks, dressed in looped strands of ice so fine and delicate, and the sun rising behind the camera, that they were covered in glowing spider webs. He was surrounded by such scenes in every direction for a hundred miles; ice and melting ice, fog and mist and livestock standing steaming, all struck by a sun risen as cold and indifferent to these glorious effects as it was to him, standing there smelling the dust warming on the heater’s dusty grill.

He opened the drapes in the living room and looked out at nothing but gray and wet. His single-wide sat on the extreme northern end of the farm, the end farthest from town. Its back was to sixty two acres of almond trees, its face to an unnamed road, across which were 40 acres of Mr. Turbson’s wine grapes. In clear weather, the window had a big, beautiful view of the Sierras.

Through the rain and fog he could just make out the leading edge of the grapes. It was soggy, drizzly, and cold. Peaceful.

Marty took his watch and wallet from the dresser, where he kept them beside a snow globe of the Statehouse, complete with little flags and trees. When there was light to spare, its crystal body broke it into scattered bolts that shot across the room. Bo sent that home to Marty for his 25^th birthday six years earlier, when Bo was away at college, and Marty cherished it.

The watch was Dad’s, a Smith’s W10 military watch from England, with a canvas band. He wore it in Korea. When Marty graduated from high school, Dad threw a barbeque party in his back yard, and he gave him that watch in front of his friends. He was proud of his son. Sometimes Marty thought Dad should have held onto it for Bo. he picked it up, and felt his throat go tight and tears come to his eyes. He wanted so badly to break out in sobs, but he was floating in sadness too deep for tears, and the mountains were obscured by clouds.

from a novel in process by Kyle Kimberlin, 2004

for this post, all rights are reserved

“Speak truth to stupidity. Speak truth to thuggery. Speak truth to douchebaggery. Better we each become Michael Moore than we all become Winston Smith. The power of testifying should give us, if not hope, at least something to do. “

Joho the Blog: The honeymoon is over.

That’s a great word, douchebaggery. Best new word since asshat.

Spotted on Doc Searles Weblog.

Here, in a column by Molly Ivins, is a partial list of the lies.

“What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect

given to authority. “– Molly Ivins

Yahoo! News

We see here, perhaps, how the increasingly autocratic government is going to balance the budget for education. … Duck and cover, kids.

Check out this great Web site. Awesome kids taking care of their pets and working for positive pet-related change in their community.

K-9 KIDS RESOURCE AND RESCUE – Kids Making Animals Dreams Come True!!!

This is just the kind of thing I need to help lift me from my post-election blues.

I was laboring under a misconception of vast proportions, of which I have lately been soundly and painfully disabused. I believed that George W. Bush — through the politically nefarious connivance of the Courts — stole the 2000 election, pretended to his office, deceived Congress into granting him authority to wage an illegal and unprovoked war, turned his back on the civilized world community, then deceived the American people to send their sons and daughters to die for nothing in particular.

I believed that, through ongoing deceit and for inscrutable personal and political reasons, our troops have remained – quagmired – in an escalating occupation of counter-insurgency, now against the will of Congress and the American people.

I believed that the corrupt impetus of all this sad bloodshed – not to mention unfathomable domestic incompetence – had come to light, so that the people could see that, whatever it is, it was never so righteous and essential as Bush claimed it to be.I believed that we were the good guys, that once it was shown that we attacked a country that was no real threat to us, killed many of its children, and secreted its citizens in camps – without human rights or due process of law – Americans would rise up – at least as a majority of reasonable people – and hurl this man and his minions from power.

The election of George W. Bush, to serve now as legitimate president, is nothing less than a resounding ratification of his fascist, protectionist policies. He is not, as I supposed, a radical leader dragging an unwilling and ultimately benign society into a turmoil of misguided violence, isolation, and divisive chaos. While there are certainly many among us who recoil at the antisocial, self-righteous, sometimes cruel acceleration of our Orwellian national juggernaut, there are far more who approve. It turns out that Americans would rather follow a straight-talking idiot than an intellectual statesman. The Nascar Dads, NRA misfits, and homophobes must have their good old boy, come what may. Thus, it is not a rogue presidency that we see stampeding into the new century, but a rogue nation.

Perhaps its just as well that Kerry didn’t win. He’s too much a statesman to heave aloft The Lord of the Flies on its spike for the cheering crowd. As for me, we still have the First Amendment, for now. I hope there will always be dissenters, tapping out futile calls for reserve and moderation, from the ruins of a city on a hill.

Well, I’ll go ahead and say it. Don’t like to, don’t want to, haven’t said it since 1973. But I don’t see any choice. So many have died. So many lies have been hatched out of hell. I’m reluctant only because I love my country and its institutions, and I’m the kind of guy who questions but respects authority. But here goes:

For me, this has always been a fight against the ubiquitous violence, greed, and fascism that, while defining this administration, have always been a subtle pulse in the arteries of western civilization as it declines. While the ratification of this fear-mongering, divisionary presidency is a touch I do confess – the ultimate issue hasn’t changed. Our legacy to the next generation is corrupt, marked by economic anemia, environmental destruction, and a fascism of fear. I look at the children, and cannot imagine this is what they will inherit. I cannot pass on such a rotten gift.

Does anyone have any predictions for the tone of the election in 2008?